“Helldivers 2 Dev” collaborates with Sony Studio Nixxes to create a “slimmed down” version of the PC version, reducing the file size from 154GB to 23GB

Hellraiser 2 Developer Arrowhead has created a “slimmed down” version of its explosive co-op third-person shooter, significantly reducing file size on PC.

PC gamers have been complaining about Helldivers 2's excessive install size on PC for some time, and Arrowhead recently outlined plans to bring it closer to the size of the console version. in a post steamArrowhead said it had worked with Sony-owned PC port specialist Nixxes to achieve its goal earlier than expected, reducing the PC install size from 154GB to 23GB, a total savings of 131GB (85%).

Arrowhead is now launching a stripped-down version of Helldivers 2 as part of a public technical beta. “Our testing shows that for the small subset of players still using mechanical hard drives, worst-case mission load times only increase by a few seconds,” Arrowhead explains.

The studio has warned that changing Helldivers 2's file size could increase load times by 10 times – in fact, that's why it's duplicating data in the updated version. But it turns out that the worst-case scenario predictions did not come true.

“These load time predictions are based on industry data – comparing load times between SSD and HDD users with and without data duplication,” Arrowhead explains. “In the worst-case scenario, there was a 5x difference between instances with duplication and without duplication. We were very conservative and again doubled our predictions to account for unknown unknowns.

“That's different now. We have real measurements for our game, not industry data. We now know that the real number of players actively playing HD2 on mechanical HDDs last week was around 11% (it seems our estimate wasn't bad after all). We now know that, contrary to most games, Helldivers 2 Most of the load time in 2D is due to level generation rather than asset loading. This level generation occurs in parallel with loading assets from disk and is therefore the main determinant of load times, even for users with mechanical hard drives.”

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